I gave my G-Shock Gulfman to Elliot as he was off to The Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. Having come to the conclusion that his need was greater than mine.
I would use my trusty automatic divers watch, as I was wearing that most of the time anyway, so this was not going to be an inconvenience at all.
Then within 10 days of Elliot having left my watch started playing up, it would just stop for no reason, no problem a simple tap would get it going again. But how long had it been stopped for? After a couple of days of this, the little tap would not get it going again. Sian suggested that I didn’t need a watch and that after a while I would just know what the time was, or I could look at the clock on my mobile, DVD player, TV, etc. No problem, but now I was forever looking for my phone, where had I put it? Leaving the room I was in to look at the clock on the DVD. If I need to know the time was this the most efficient way to be doing it!
Well I’ve been trying that system for a week now, and I am just not comfortable with it, having worn a watch for more years than I care to recollect, I just like to have a watch on for when I want to know the time.
So its time to invest in a new watch but now the dilemma starts! How much should I spend, what did I want the watch to provide me with? What is a time piece worth?
I need a watch that is fairly sturdy as I am rather rough on my time pieces. It needs to be able to swim, I always forget to take them off when bathing, swimming, etc. I need to be able to see it in the dark and with my failing eyesight. It also needs to have the date. Other functions would be; the date and also world time for when I need to jump on webinars from around the globe.
I could get a watch for between £30-£40 that would fill some of these criteria, but they tend to be rather flimsy, either the body or the strap will give out fairly quickly, in fact, with me this could be as quickly as 4-6months. Alternatively, as I have in the past, I could spend £400+ on a watch that would fill some of the criteria, this would be more robust, but I might have to sacrifice on, alarms, world time, etc.
No matter where I started from I seemed to be coming back to G-Shock’s. For somewhere between £70 and £350 I could have a watch that covered all the criteria I had set. But now a new dilemma was placed in front of me; digital or analogue? Ahhh!
I suppose what this really all comes down to is; not what is a time piece worth? But what is my time worth?
If I spent let’s say, somewhere in the middle – £220 on a watch, would that be equal to the time I had spent both looking for my phone, etc and the time taken researching a new watch when I realised that’s what I needed and umming and erring over the cost and features.
I know its an old cliche but sometimes little things can remind us that the right thing to do is get the right tool for the job in the first place, rather than trying to make do with something that, at a push, can fill the role. Jack of all trades master of none – did I hear someone say?
Thank you to DesheBoard for the photo
